I have watched the NY Times and the left wing bloggers beat up the Pentagon because it provided background briefings to retired military servicemembers who turned up as talking heads in the media. The blog, Politico, called it a "'Deafening' silence on analyst story," observing that the politicians are now getting fired up over the story, even though the mainstream media is not.

I cannot begin to understand the problem. Is it that these retired military personnel used that access and "insider briefings" to support some of their analysis they later gave to the media? Or is that they often repeated the Administration's line? Geesh, what a surprise.

There are a couple of places these guys provide a great service to the media. For instance, today I watched CNN report on video of "tanks" in downtown Beirut. They weren't tanks, but M113 Armored Personnel Carriers, which brings a whole different kind of capability to a fight. These "pundits" know the difference, the media generally doesn't. I have watched the media report on helicopter gunship operations and show non-SOF Black Hawks. Other times the media shows pictures of Black Hawks while reporting on mission that could only be done by a Chinook. The (Army) talking heads generally know the difference, but the media doesn't know or doesn't care. The result is often that what you hear from the media is misleading or simply 180 out from reality.

But beyond that, these "talking heads" need Pentagon access to provide insights on operations and US intentions. There is nowhere to get that, except from the "well". That is, Pentagon insider briefings. Watching the "pundits" it was always evident when they had gone beyond their expertise. I recall an Army and Air Force General talking about the characteristics of Tabun and Sarin nerve agents. With every word, they showed that they were totally clueless. Of course the media was none the wiser.

Getting an "insider" briefing doesn't mean that these guys walked out and mindlessly repeated by rote what they heard. Some did, some did not. But all used their background information to provide input into their analysis of what they presented. Generally it was miles ahead of anything you ever heard from such military "experts" as Geraldo Rivera or Wolf Blitzer.

The Pentagon recently released all the documents it had turned over to the NY Times for its story for perusal. Reading through the endless email traffic I found few surprises. One supposed "smoking gun" is an audio recording of one such briefing. Given the audience, is their little surprise that the general consensus was "pro" war on terror? (Transcript of the audio is here.) The NY Times seemed shocked by the tone! But if one listens carefully, there was a lot of give and take during the Rumsfeld-Pace-Pundit discussion which was probably more useful in terms of insight by the SecDef than the pundits.

One assumes that if you look at a General Officer that they all come out of the same mold. Nothing can be further than the truth. Some are really bright and insightful, some innovative and creative, others are little better than route step drones. Once retired, that rank carries a lot of credibility, but the truth remains that some who "made it" are very good. Some are very blessed with making General officer because of a great gift of gab and the right jobs, while others are a few cards short of a full deck. Looking at the list of talking heads the Pentagon briefed, I assure you all three types were well represented.

So the NY Times was surprised that some parroted the Administration's line? Why? Many of these folks were great officers, they took their mission and executed it as well as it could be done. They did not disassemble the politics of the mission, they went forth and executed. It is in accordance with the long tradition the military has always followed the directions of their civilian bosses. I suspect that some figured doing that in the media was simply supporting the mission as they have always done.

Few of these officers doubt the threat of extremist Islam. Their comments show it. The fact that the NY Times does not, allows them to take pot-shots at these guys. How convenient.

There is one other factor to consider too. Most of these senior officers and senior enlisted "pundits" studied war intently while on active duty. Few studied the politics that lead to past wars. That is why you see them making the case for war in terms of past wars and nationalism with little understanding of those politician's manipulations that lead us into that war. The American military tradition is that one does not challenge the politics that lead to a war.

If there is a deficiency in the military educational system it is that. Yet to do so means that they would question their civilian bosses, which flies in the tradition of the American military. I have blogged here before that a military officer has two choices when facing an impending conflict: execute, or resign. In recent years, there have been too few resignations, which suggests that we have failed to truly educate our senior military leadership in the total responsibility of their duty which places the US Constitution atop politics.

Changing that tradition of not challenging our politicians would be a dangerous move. The last thing we need is the military deciding it knows best how the country should be governed and interact with other nations. It is a scenario from the movie "Seven Days in May" that would be fatal to our Republic.

It comes down to this. This administration lacked a Committee on Public Information or Office of War Information such as was used so successfully by previous Presidents to propagandize their war. It is a little tidbit from history folks on the left want you to forget. It should be no surprise that the Bush Administration used this process to attempt to tell it's story.

There is no beef here ... just politics as usual - move along.